Monday, January 23, 2017

Subsistence Hunting

My father and his siblings
were poachers. Growing up during the Great Depression in Northwest Colorado, it
was a choice of wild game or starving for an extended family of nearly twenty
souls. Others in the area faced the same dilemma. The local authorities tending to turn a blind
eye, so long as the game wasn’t wasted or sold.

After WWII jobs were scarce
and pay was low. My father and his older brother found employment around
Breckenridge, CO. At age three I called deer “bang, bang cows”.

An early memory was being
asleep in the back seat of a car, at night, and the doors opening and a fresh
deer carcass landing on the floor.

We grew up eating venison and
elk. Beef was a rare treat.

One Christmas season we were
having dinner with another family. The mother had, as a special treat, prepared
a ham. Her kids didn’t want to eat it, said it,” Didn’t taste like meat”. A
hard look from her and they did eat it, quietly. In those days kids had two
choices. Eat what was in front of them or go hungry, often with a paddled
bottom.

In later years my father
slacked off on poaching. Our finances were better, we had a very small ranch,
and we grew our own beef.

To this day some of my
relatives poach. It isn’t so much economic as it is giving the finger to the
government. That said, they don’t waste any of the meat or take just the choice
parts. They don’t want to be disowned by the others in the clan.

Have I ever taken game out of
season or without a proper license? I respectfully refuse to answer that
question on the grounds………………….

We ate a lot of trout I caught in the summer. We had about 1 1/4 miles of river as our West boundary with little public access unless they wanted to wade the river. I could catch six pan sized trout in about 30 minutes. Never bothered getting a license.

Haven't fished for catfish or bass. One time was in a group catching crappie. Lots of work filleting them. Went on a few salmon charters. The river I fished for trout also had grayling but my family prefered trout.

I used to take widow's deer tags and fill them. It's not illegal because I had a hunting license and picked my own deer to slap a tag on.

My first deer, shot at age 7 with a .22 during turkey season in Arizona's White Mountains was a poach. My grandfather didn't think that I'd pull the trigger. We cleaned it, skinned it, butchered it, packaged it, froze it and ate it.

I think that you need laws and I think that you need to make things regular or people will take advantage, but taking a deer or an elk because you're poor or hungry at any time is better than starving...and sometimes to prove a point, I guess.

Someone taking game to feed their family has never bothered me. Wasting is another story. One year my father and I observed a group jumping a herd of elk about a mile away. Don't know if it was blood lust but they shot the shit out of that herd. Wounded more than they killed. That was one time the Game Warden got my father's complete cooperation.

With family members who fill tags for the elderly people they know and use the meat to fill freezers, I have no issue with hunting. And if the choice is not eating or taking down the deer that's always in the front yard, well...

But I have issues with people who waste meat, too. And I hate trophy hunters passionately.

I rarely get venison anymore, my husband doesn't hunt now. He used to, but physical issues are limiting him these days.

Remember when Dad worked on the railroad and the deer would get caught on the tracks and couldn't get up over the snow banks? Trains worked as well as guns. There were quite a few people in the small hamlet next to the tracks and the kids and their school lunches who had fresh meet.

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About Me

Semi retired road warrior, car salesman, occasional repo man. Father of three fine sons. Once a Blue Dog Democrat. Once a soldier; once a pilot. Rolling along life's highway proving there is no fool like an old fool.